Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Phoenix SpiritDiva. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Hi Phoenix, thanks for joining us today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?
Perhaps the most meaningful project I’ve been asked to create started with a telephone call last summer. “Phoenix, could you put together a proposal of about seven of your works from your Sacred Trees, Landscapes and other collections?” The resident curator of the Cleveland Clinic Florida at Weston went on to share that the hospital had received a donation. The works were for the Women’s Center. I was the only artist they were considering. Instantly humbled and grateful knowing that the curator was familiar with many of the fine local artists who had exhibited at the hospital, I submitted several proposals over the next two months as the request grew from seven to 14 to 22 fine art photography works.
However, it wasn’t that the hospital acquired 22 large works measuring 24 x 36 inches each that makes this my most meaningful project to date or that the story was picked up in a national magazine. It was where they were hung and why that touches my soul and reflects why I do what I do. They were installed in two waiting rooms and four examination rooms in the Women’s Center. In the curator’s words, my works were selected because they “transport viewers from the outside-in to a deep meditative place of peace and healing”.
And, the “icing on the cake,” so to speak, was the affect the 22 works have on women waiting for their appointments and/or test results in the waiting and examination rooms. I’ll never forget watching what so many did the day we were hanging the permanent installation. In the words of one, she almost immediately went into a meditative space feeling a deep sense of peace as she reflected on a few of the pieces, “Grace,” “Pretty in Purple” and “Twilight”. She told me later that before the images were hung she was anxious awaiting her test results sitting in what felt like a very sterile waiting room. Thankfully her test results were negative. Since then I repeatedly receive messages from others who recognize my works and send notes of thanks.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
Today all disciplines from my background have converged to form who I am professionally. I’m an internationally collected, award-winning conservation photographer whose works are in more than 90 private and corporate collections worldwide. I’m the recipient of a number of prestigious awards for my fine art nature and wildlife photography, including: two month-long Artist-In-Residence programs – Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the Olive Stack Gallery in Ireland; the Virtual Artist-in-Residence for the Center for Great Apes Art4Apes Exhibition; the featured artist for the first Endangered Exhibit – United Kingdom; two public art grants and nine public art awards. My fine art photographs have been exhibited nationally and internationally in numerous juried group exhibitions as well as 22 museum, public and private solo exhibits. They have also graced national magazine covers and are regularly featured in newspapers, magazines, blog posts and video interviews worldwide.
Although I didn’t set out to be a professional photographer, life circumstances, or was it the Universe, kept bringing me back to it. In retrospect the seeds of being a nature photographer were first planted as a child on family vacations to national parks like Yosemite and the Everglades. Even though my father never handed me a camera, I stood right next to him as he magically captured each vista. This love of nature and photography was nurtured with a steady diet of watching nature programs on television and reading National Geographic Magazine. Today I believe these early experiences helped shape my art of seeing.
In college, I received degrees in English, education and administration; yet, I ended up teaching filmmaking, TV production, journalism, yearbook and newspaper production and later managing media and public relations staffs for the fourth- and fifth-largest (where I was also chief-of-staff) school districts in America. Additionally, I organized more than 20 local, state and national conferences for up to 2,000 participants. One year I was even the lead judge for the best photograph in the world for the Society of Professional Journalist, Sigma Delta Chi. I too won national awards in journalism and was president of the Miami chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.
Then after almost 20 years, my much-loved career in public education abruptly came to an end, having found myself “sacrificed” in the middle of a political struggle by upper management. During this time, my mother, my best friend, was dying after more than 30 years of overcoming cancer. After a year of sending off hundreds of resumes and having sporadic interviews where I was repeatedly told I was over-educated and too qualified (work, skills and salary), I discovered an interest in entrepreneurship. Soon my new life consisted of networking meetings morning, noon and night. This led me to discover personal coaching, something I had been unknowingly doing since I was in sixth grade. I created a successful business as a professional coach, professional speaker, book author and radio talk-show host assisting thousands of people to grow themselves and their businesses.
After a short-lived second marriage ended with significant emotional and financial losses, I was guided to return to my hometown, Miami, to help my father who was ailing and heal myself. Here I built upon my spiritual coaching business, helping people understand and “breakthrough” the storms in their life as they (and I) grew themselves and their businesses, hosted several more radio talk-shows, wrote nationally published magazine articles and produced three CDs. Then as my dad was nearing the end of his life, my youngest sister was doing the same. Both made their transitions about a year apart.
After so much loss in a short few years, as the New Year started I asked myself the proverbial question: What do you want to be when you grow up? I reflected on what I used to love. Instantly I answered “photography.” After walking away from film photography some 20 years earlier when my first marriage ended saving only a dozen slides of my “favorite images,” I joined the digital age with new curiosity. I quickly attracted like-minded friends and mentors, joined local photography groups and reconnected with my love of nature and wilderness. Within a short time, I was entering photography contests and winning top awards. And, as the say “the rest is history”.
Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?
This is an interesting question in this age when so many people think because they have a mobile phone they are like professional photographers. Although technology is rapidly progressing, there is a tremendous difference between taking a pix and making fine art photographs. Fine Art Photographs stand out because of the artist’s particular style or brand so when people see the artist’s work they recognize the artist even before reading the signature or watermark. Additionally, there is so much more that goes into become an “overnight” artist success story…or, anyways, working towards becoming one. Often people smile and say things like it must be fun to be out doing my photography all day long. I only wish that were true. Yes, it is fun, I love immersing myself in nature and capturing the moment. For me nature is my sanctuary and photography is an almost spiritual experience. And, yet, there is an entire back end story for every image that is printed, exhibited and/or collected.
Much like Thomas Edison’s definition of Success, being a successful fine art photographer is 10 percent Inspiration and 90 percent Perspiration. For me the 10 percent Inspiration is the time I’m in-the-field, being one with and connecting with the soul of my subject, whether it’s a landscape, waterscape, sacred tree, bird, the cosmos or more.
Perhaps the biggest part of the 90 percent “perspiration” is the business of being a fine art photographer. In addition to the many hours of contemplating, pre-planning, photographing, traveling and post-processing preparation, there is working with the print lab; proposals and meetings with collectors, gallery owners and curators; marketing and promotion; sales; social media; follow-up; shipping; installing shows and celebrating at exhibitions.
Like many art mediums, photography’s workflow to becoming a recognized, exhibited and collected fine art photographer flows from intuitive insights on what to photograph or when and where to go for the “winning” image. However, unlike many other art mediums, being a nature photographer takes pre-planning time to identify when, where and what to photograph. Charts for weather conditions, sunrise/sunset times, cloud and storm coverage and the Milky Way’s location need to be consulted. It takes time to scope out the ideal photo location for most images, arriving early and staying late to ensure you capture the moment. It takes travel time back and forth to your subject. Some landscape images take an hour plus to travel one-way to a location or days to travel to destinations across the state, country or across the globe. Unlike going into one’s studio, nature photographers have to travel with their equipment and specialized gear for each situation.
And, even after you’ve done all the preliminary research, packed your gear and traveled to your destination, things have a way of changing. One example is the first time I experienced and photographed the Milky Way. I hiked above the Alpine Trail Road to the “Roof of the Rockies” at Rock Cut in Rocky Mountain National Park from about 11,800 feet in altitude to over 12,400 feet in temperatures approaching freezing with equally harsh winds. This was quite an adventure for this zero elevation person; stopping about every three steps to catch my breath. I hiked the trail on two different nights since the first time up there were snow flurries. Thankfully there was a happy ending resulting in “Starry Starry Night Over the Rockies”.
Another example is when I was in Cape Cod this summer, sunrise was at 5:05 am and sunset was 8:18 pm and the best times to view the Milky Way started around 9:30 pm on the day of the New Moon or a few day before and after it. Oh, then there was the hiking several miles both ways most days mostly at dusk or after sunset across steep and shifting sand dunes to get to the location. For the week I was there only one of the days leading up to and after the New Moon was cloudless to capture the Milky Way. This resulted in “Milky Way Over Cape Cod”.
When out in nature no two days and no two minutes are the same. Everything is in a constant state of change. Timing is everything to capture what Henri Cartier-Bresson called the decisive moment: “The difference between an incredible picture and a mediocre picture is a millimeter.” “First Light” is a good example to illustrate this. I drove one-hour and forty-five minutes to Long Pine Key in Everglades National Park to arrive 30 minutes before sunrise. It’s pitch black twilight. Using a flashlight I walked towards the lake. The light shined back. I froze. Intuitively I knew I was walking straight towards an alligator. I stepped back towards the direction I came from and waited. As the sun’s golden rays passed though the pine trees across the lake, I raced towards the lake’s edge to capture the moment as the gator slid off the shore, gliding across the lake in the morning fog.
Another is the time I photographed “Land of Blue Smoke”. There was a constant, heavy rain since Friday afternoon. It was Sunday and I was leaving the Great Smoky Mountains the next day. As the weather reports projected, the rains were easing up a bit. I was intuitively guided to go to Morton’s Overlook near dusk and stood in the rain for well over an hour photographing as the clouds came down lower and lower over the mountains until I felt I had captured the decisive moment.
After a photo session there is the post-processing workflow. From any one photography session I may take 10, 25, 100 to 8,000 images (when I traveled for a month artist residency to Ireland and Great Smoky Mountains). I upload and sort through all the images taken and identify the keepers, narrowing the collection down for each location or segment of a trip to the one to three images that are beyond technically perfect, they convey the emotion of the moment I was feeling in-the-field. Then in the computer digital lab I work with the raw images (essentially the digital negatives that contain the information captured by the digital camera’s sensor) to bring out what I saw and felt by working with the light, texture, color and more to ensure my finished work reflects nature’s perfection. After re-sizing for the final version, the master is uploaded to the printer, processed by them and then delivered to the gallery or collector.
Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?
It’s been a serpentine path (along with a few sharp turns) through physical, emotional, fiscal and spiritual loss and awakening to become the conservation photographer and person who I am today. With each loss, communing with the divine, transcendent essence of nature’s beauty has renewed, deepened and healed my life, my spirit. My two-fold mission has been inspired through my awakened eyes and healed heart. They are expressed in the soul essence of the subjects I photograph from the flora and fauna of the Florida Everglades to dramatic sunrises and sunsets to places throughout the world.
My conservation photography helps bring the beauty of the outside natural world inside so others may benefit from the sacred healing, peace and harmony that I experience every time I step out into nature. Additionally, believing that we are all one, we are all interconnected, with each of my pieces it’s always my intent to touch hearts and raise awareness of endangered and threatened species and habitats that we stand to lose in the natural world if we are not careful.
“Disappearing Hemlock” reflects my mission. My initial intent was to capture the essence of the golden sun rays passing through the “gray ghosts” forest (dead hemlock trees) mixing with the warm scents of fall, all spice, cinnamon and lemon, belying the massive destruction all around. Forests throughout the Smokies are undergoing a major ecological shift due to the die-off of millions of hemlocks caused by the hemlock woolly adelgid. This nonnative forest insect pest is believed to have come to the United States in the early 1900s from Japan, unknowingly transported by humans. First discovered in the park in 2002, humans continue to spread the insects through firewood. Although hemlocks can live up to 600 years, a woolly adelgid can kill a tree in just three to 10 years. Forestry experts say their loss will affect everything from stream temperatures to forest composition. This in turn affects canopies that attract songbirds and help keep water temperatures cool in the summer for trout and other sensitive species.
It’s my greatest desire that my gifts as a fine art photographer help inspire others to make a difference in preserving the transcendent beauty of wild places and threatened and endangered species for generations to come.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.photographsbyphoenix.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/phoenixspiritdiva/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/phoenix.spiritdiva
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/phoenix-spiritdiva-63a9b213/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/spiritdiva
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrN6fTMKO8FqVqSmkGzBF1A
- Other: http://innovativepublicartgroup.com/
Image Credits
Photographs By Phoenix